Vim is a texeditor. The name comes from Vi IMproved as it is a clone (with additions) of vi, a text editor program for Unix. It was release to the public in 1991.

Modes

Vim has 6 basic modes:

Normal mode

the default mode, used for editor commands

Visual mode

like normal mode, but can highligh areas of text and editor commands will run on that highlighted text

Select mode

like visual mode but if you enter a printable character, carriage return, new line or line feed Vim will insert the character and start insert mode

Insert mode

similar to editing in most editors

Cmdline mode

supports a single line at the bottom of the window for commands

Ex mode

similar to Cmdline mode but on completion it prompts for another Ex command (you almost never want this mode)